Conventionally, a wafer with tape frame is formed by sticking a dicing tape on a ring-shaped frame and supporting a semiconductor wafer on the dicing tape, and the wafer with tape frame is stored in a storage container and transported to a dicing process and a die bonding process.
As a container for storing a wafer with tape frame, it is known to use a horizontal (a coin stuck type) transport container for storing a semiconductor wafer in a horizontal direction as shown in Patent Document 1, for example. More specifically, it is a container for stacking and storing two or more stages of frames with tape frame, which comprises a container body having a storage cylindrical portion for storing the stacked wafers with tape frame and a cover body for covering the entire storage cylindrical portion by attaching to the container body in a detachable manner, and a positioning rib projects from the inner peripheral surface of the storage cylindrical portion for positioning the ring-shaped frame in a circumferential direction.
It is also common to interpose a bendable synthetic resin sheet or a spacer sheet like dust-free paper between the wafers with tape frame in order to prevent vibrations and shocks during container transportation from propagating to semiconductor wafers of the wafers with tape frame.
On the other hand, recently, the development of chip integration technologies (3DS-IC: three dimension stacking IC) using Through Silicon Via (TSV) realized sophisticated, high speed and low power consumption chips and therefore it is considered as a future semiconductor technology driver.